I had a lovely brunch with my parents for Mother’s Day. I brought over strata, tiramisu, and a loaf of Semifreddi’s challah. All very tasty. I was going to make English muffins (there was a recipe for them in the San Jose Mercury News last week), but I ran out of time. I still want to make them, though. I think they’d be super-tasty.
Hagen-Daaz has debuted their Mayan Chocolate ice cream. Rosy got some and was letting us all try it. It has cinnamon-chocolatey goodness, but it lacks cayenne.
D&D this week was wrapping up the end of the adventure, so not much happened there. Kaya is now the owner of a lovely mithril chain shirt. We got Effvar resurrected instead of having R☆ roll up yet another character. Effvar, previously a halfling, came back as an elf.
I had to buy gas five days shy of one month. Still, I think I did a pretty good job. Let’s keep up with that, self. The whole train and walking thing is good for you.
My hair is now long enough to pull back into a stubby nape ponytail (three to four inches, I would say). Hurrah for hair of one length!
I have a new recipe (Chocolate Oat bars), but I’m holding off on posting it for a while. There’s probably going to be a dry spell coming up (er, a drier spell, I should say), and I’ll need to spread out my postings of consequence a bit.
Mother’s Day is this weekend. I’m making brunch on Sunday. Exciting stuff! I’m not going to say what I’m making, because it’s a surprise. Unless my dad told my mom, in which case it’s not.
Bravo, Kashi!
I came home from work today to find a bag on my apartment door from the good cereal-makers at Kashi. “Ooh, free sample!” I thought.
I picked up the bag. It was much heavier than I expected. I got inside and opened it up. Not only was there a generous sample of GoLean Crunch, there was an eight ounce shelf-stable container of Silk Soymilk. That’s awesome.
Wow. We have lost two party members in two weeks. Last week our halfling cleric, Tibbet, was killed by an ogre. This week, our bard/warmage Hitch was killed by a howler, a kind of spiked demon dog. We also left Hitch’s body behind as we ran the hell away. Bad comrades! Kaya’s character has been moving from “foolhardy” to “paranoid” and now to “COWARD.”
(I sort of think our party name should be The Quick and the Dead. Of course, that probably wouldn’t inspire confidence in anyone who was looking for an adventuring party.)
I made this multigrain bread on Sunday. It’s really quite tasty. I used a mixture of sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds (because strangely enough, I had pepitas in my freezer). I need to mix together some honey butter. I think that’d taste fabulous on this.
So, if you make the recipe below, please read the whole thing first. Turn the oven on, start the brine, roast the garlic (covered), drain the chicken, finish roasting the garlic (uncovered), turn up the oven, cook the chicken. Don’t turn the oven on, brine the chicken, and then a half hour later say, “Oh, I was supposed to be roasting the garlic that whole time?”
The ‘rents and I went to Jardiniere last night for my birthday dinner. We had a lovely meal. For starters, Mom had some scallops that were beautifully cooked, I had duck confit which was just falling apart under its crispy skin, and Dad had lamb and bean soup. He didn’t volunteer any “OMG it’s so good!”-type comments, so I’m guessing he was not overwhelmed by it. For our main courses, Mom and Dad both got shortribs, which they said were good, except for the fact that the mashed potatoes kind of dissolved into the sauce. I had… let me copy it from their site… Loin of Cervena Venison with Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Glazed Baby Spring Vegetables, Smoked Bacon and Creamed Nettles, Sauce Au Poivre. It was tasty! That was my first time eating nettles, and now I’m keen on trying them again. (If I can find them, that is. Eddie made a nettle risotto a month or two ago that looked good.) My only complaints were that there were two cipolline onions that weren’t fully cooked (which was sad because the ones that were fully cooked were so ridiculously wonderful), and that if anyone else had been eating it, they would have found it too salty. I think that could be said for pretty much everything we got, actually. A little too heavy on the salt. And we love salt in our family.
None of the desserts really interested me (although if I had gone for one, it would have been the date and pine nut tart). I really wanted to end the meal with a glass of vin santo, but I was so full. I was afraid I was going to lose my dinner on the way home. Thankfully, I didn’t. I felt bad, though. Dad was interested in getting their grappa sampler (to which I say, ewww), but I was just too far gone.
Overall:
Service? Impeccable. Atmosphere? Lovely. Food? A bit salty, but in general, quite good. Prices? High, but probably worth it. Would I go again? If you’re paying.
Dude. I went to an Indian market today (Kumud Grocery in Newark), and they were selling butter for $1.69 a pound. That is ridiculous! And it was a good brand of butter, too (Berkeley Farms, I think). If I didn’t already have four pounds in my freezer, I would have stocked up!
What I did stock up on was yummy spiced breads. They’re in my parents’ freezer, since I’m out of room in mine. I keep trying to clean it out, but it never gets to be less! I have some challah and French bread that are taking up a lot of room. I should eat those. Flatbreads take up less space.
I made cupcakes last night. I used a basic yellow cake recipe from Cook’s Illustrated and added some orange extract. I had all this leftover chocolate icing from my cake, you see. I figured cupcakes are easy, good for D&D, and will use up the leftovers. Only sort of worked, as I still have icing left. Also, I was lazy and didn’t want to sift my cake flour, so I just used AP. They could be a little on the tough side. I hope not.
Why didn’t I make the yellow cupcakes from last year? Well, it was gross out and I didn’t feel like going to the store to buy sour cream.
Today’s food section in the San Francisco Chronicle has an article about cupcakes.
Cupcakes always make me think of this Strong Bad email.
Recipes for the cake and frosting I made (but not the cupcakes, since I haven’t tried one yet) are below.
R☆ came over last night for chicken and Doctor Who. Last time I made a chicken for him, it turned out blackened and undercooked. It’s nice to know that some things never change. I tried a new recipe for roasting a whole bird out of Anthony Bourdain’s Les Halles Cookbook. I should not attempt to roast whole birds. It’s never as good as pan-roasting.
I hope you’re not sick, R☆. I’m sorry.
I had all the ingredients for this recipe. I had a chunk of feta in my freezer that had been there since July 2004. I finished off a bulb of lemon juice (gasp, I don’t always use fresh lemons, I’m an evil harlot who shouldn’t be allowed within 50 feet of a kitchen). This was a good “getting rid of things” recipe for me. And it wasn’t half bad! The chicken was nice and moist. I burnt the top a little bit under the broiler, but it still tasted fine. One thing I’d suggest is to make sure you eat this hot, because feta hardens up strangely.
The original recipe called for a quarter teaspoon of table salt and an eighth teaspoon of pepper, but I just sprinkled both liberally. If you’re not keen on eyeing things, use those measurements.
I defrosted a chicken. Something will be done with it tonight. I should find something new to do with it besides pan-roasting so I can put up a new recipe. This post should knock off the pancakes. Oh, sad and naked front page!